Just-in-Time Information and Ajax (
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In the second part of a four-part series focusing on interactive effects in Ajax, you'll learn how to create "just-in-time information" that gives your visitors the information they need, but only when they need it. This article is excerpted from chapter four of Adding Ajax, written by Shelley Powers (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596529368). Copyright © 2007 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
Just-In-Time Information
Pages are interactive when they're responsive to actions from the web page reader. The interaction could be clicking a button or link, dragging a div element, or filling in a form. Most of the time, the page context provides enough information for readers to figure out what to do, but not always. For example, web page form fields with labels such as "last name" may be easy to figure out, but others, such as "Enter fiduciary amount" may not.
Printing out detailed information within the page, however, can be messy, and forcing folks to go to another page is a pain. Opening new windows may help, but they separate the action from the object. That's where just-in-time (JIT) help comes in.
In JIT help, typically a box is displayed with text describing the item or providing additional instructions. The box could open at the point of focus or at a standard place on the page regardless of the element getting focus. The help is displayed based on actions, such as hovering the mouse over a form field.
Form Help
Form element labels can be self-explanatory, such as "first name" or "age," but every once in a while you come across one like "Post Slug" (from Wordpress, a blogging application) that leaves people scratching their heads as they check through the help documentation. Rather than sending people to a separate page, a better approach would be to add information into the page itself. Unfortunately, though, there may not be enough room. The Wordpress edit page is a good example of too many form elements and too little space.
The simplest help for forms is to capture the focus events for each form element and then display the appropriate description text block. Rather than guessing which elements might need help, assume they all do, and provide for each one. The information can be preloaded into the page or pulled up from a web service using an Ajax call.
Example 4-4 shows a simple application of JIT form help. Since the application is so small, Iv'e combined the script, stylesheet, and web page elements into one file. The code for the page attaches an onfocus event handler for each form element, including the submit button. When the form element receives the focus event. Its name is sent as part of a web service query using XMLHttpRequest. The web service returns the element's definition, which is then displayed in a separate page element, a div element identified as "help" using the innerHTML property.
